Chapter 135.

“Mr. Genovese, what’s wrong?”

“I saw something I wish I never have to see again.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sorry, please don’t mind me and continue with what you were saying.”

I definitely learned my lesson this time. Nothing was safe for me, I couldn’t even find solace in the virtual world of video games anymore like I used to. I could have sworn I downloaded the game from the official download page though. I thought it would be safe with no way for anything to go wrong, but was I really so careless that I didn’t even notice it was a knock off imitation page?

I resigned myself to boredom and forced myself to diligently listen to the rest of Val’s spiel about the meeting. We’d already been over all of it the night before, so there wasn’t really anything new to go over.

It wasn’t until two hours in that she asked me “Are you even listening anymore? I really need you to take this seriously.”

“I am taking this seriously, it’s just that we already went over all of the exact same topics last night.”

“Mr. Genovese, we did not. Everything I’m telling you right now is the first I’m telling you these things.”

“What? No way, you’re just trying to mess with me, right? We covered all this last night while putting together the presentation.”

“What are you talking about? Last night you called it a night early and said we could put the final touches on the presentation before the meeting. Wasn’t that what you were doing just now? I thought we were on the same page here.”

In a bit of a panic, I opened up the presentation we put together, but to my horror and dismay, it wasn’t completed as I remembered.

I nearly wanted to punch myself in the face. How could I not remember not completing it?! Was I that bloody tired! No, is it related to my theory? There are minor differences between the parallel timelines? Fuck off with that nonsense theory! I’m clearly just an idiot who somehow dreamed that I completed my work! AHHHH! This even happened to me in university before. I swore I’d never let that happen to me a second time yet low and behold here I am. I want to cry.

I felt the sweat that accumulated on my forehead as it trickled down my cheeks. I really almost made the greatest blunder of my working career just now due to simple carelessness. Scary! I’d definitely have lost my job regardless of what type of relationship the two of us had if I messed this up.

“Mr. Genovese, just what exactly were you doing earlier?”

“Uh... that is...”

There’s no way I could tell her I was ignoring her and playing a creepypasta knock off game. What should I say? She’ll know right away if I lie.

“I was... researching various matters.”

“Various matters, such as?”

“Impactful things.”

Birds hitting walls are pretty impactful, right?

“Impactful things?”

“Yes, there are some truly notorious impactful methods to make something memorable and unforgettable. I was researching that.”

“Why do I feel like you’re not quite fully honest?”

“It’s your imagination. Even the best of the best can be wrong sometimes.” I said that with a dead serious face, there was only absolute certainty and conviction visible in my eyes.

“Why don’t you show me what you were researching?”

“Sorry, I forgot how I got to the page.”

“That’s fine, just open up your search history.”

“I was using an incognito window.”

“... you’re full of shit, right?”

“Absolutely not! I always use an incognito window. Don’t you know how important privacy is these days?”

“Let me see your downloads folder.”

I broke out into another round of cold sweat.

“Sure... go ahead... and take a look.”

I dragged the file to another random folder before she moved to my side to check my downloads.

“See, it’s all just old stuff. Nothing from today.”

“Fine then. I’ll take your word for it since we still have more important matters at hand… for now at least.”

I internally breathed out a long sigh of relief. That was actually scarier than the game or snuff film itself. If my boss found me with something like that downloaded on my laptop, I’d definitely be boned if she opened it up and the scene I closed the game out at started playing again.

“You look pretty relieved like you just dodged a bullet or something. I wonder why that is.”

“Do I? Hahaha. It’s just your imagination.”

She returned to her side of the bed, upon which I madly worked to complete the presentation based upon the memories I had from the night before. Within thirty minutes, I narrowly finished everything before we left for our meeting scheduled at 3:30 PM.

By the time we left the hotel, I was completely exhausted and running on empty. I only realized it now, but I got tired much more quickly whenever I had any sort of hallucination or nightmare. It feels like it’s recently gotten much worse than before. What if it was some sort of side effect from passing between two timelines? The greater the difference between the two timelines, the more my brain has to rewrite and rewire itself to make sense of the situation.

There was really never any indication that such a strange phenomenon occurred though. The transitions were so smooth that I typically never realized anything. Well, that’s all under the assumption that I’m not a mad man and that theory is even remotely possible. The odds that I’m way off the mark are astronomically stacked against me. In all honesty, I’m probably just trying to find an excuse for why I’m a lazy bastard who wants to slack off and sleep all the time.

While I contemplated over recent events, we arrived at my old firm. The receptionist led us to the meeting room where we were greeted by a solemn atmosphere. There was no warm reunion to be had here like I’d secretly imagined in my head. Just a bunch of old fogeys only interested in their net worth and how large their fortunes were. They definitely didn’t care about anything aside from profit.

I stiffly greeted them before I calmed myself and moved to the area where the cables to hook my laptop to the monitor were located. When I turned around, I felt like I should have expected as much. Their faces were all gone. God damn it! No warning? No build-up? Nothing! Deep down, I knew I shouldn’t have let my guard down and looked away from them for even a second, but it was too late. With dead fish eyes and a feeling of constipation in my guts, I pulled up the presentation on the large screen.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you stuck up old geezers.”

I knew a gentle passive approach would get me nowhere with these sticklers. Val was also the one who wanted me to grab their attention in such an arrogant manner. She just told me to say something unbelievable that they would never imagine would be used to break the ice.

Val who’d already taken a seat was the first to respond and said, “Mr. Genovese, please watch your language. We’re all civilized people here.”

I couldn’t see anyone else’s expressions, but I could still strangely hear them whispering among themselves quietly, despite lacking any mouths.

“Weren’t we here to rob them?”

“Mr. Genovese, enough with the jokes. We’re here for business. Busi-ness. Do you understand?”

“Sorry, I mixed up our meetings. I thought we were robbing them today.”

“Mr. Genovese, that’s our meeting for next week. We wouldn’t rob a valuable business partner like we’re some sort of uncivilized criminals in our first meeting, we need to make a good impression first you fool. Don’t worry though, we’ll definitely take them down to the bank next week to really tax them and collect some real big money.”

I slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand before I lowered it back down and rubbed my hands together ingratiatingly. I shamelessly requested, “please forgive me for my earlier rudeness, oh valuable, walking, talking, money bags-”

Val interjected and cut me off with a cough before she immediately cleared her throat.